


Strange Fruit

by kaithartic (bluedreaming)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 20:51:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3743149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedreaming/pseuds/kaithartic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Minseok wakes up with a foreboding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Fruit

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally a much shorter plot for a sukai shiritori that I ended up not writing for political reasons, so it percolated in my mind until right now, nothing else to do on the airplane from Guangzhou to Singapore, watching the movie FURY and looping track 12 from the first Rurouni Kenshin soundtrack. An in-depth explanation of this story can be read [here](http://bluedreaming.livejournal.com/35978.html).

  
Minseok wakes up that Monday morning with the certainty that today is going to be his last day. It's not fear, exactly, nor heaviness in his belly. The thought of his impending demise is actually a kind of sweetness, when examined from the right angle. How water tastes heavenly when slaking one's thirst. That sort of thing. _What am I even talking about?_  
  
He shakes his head to clear it of these silly thoughts. _I must have been dreaming awake_ , he thinks, and forgets what he knew so well only moments earlier. Whether this is a mistake or a blessing is yet to be seen.  
  
It's not glamorous, being a detective. Minseok walks to work like anyone else, except sometimes earlier because people are getting killed and he's supposed to do something about it. _How ironic_ , he thinks, _I got the top scores in shooting but. I'm supposed to stop people from doing it_. But he doesn't dwell too much on these gloomy thoughts, walking down an unfamiliar alley because someone had the audacity to be murdered there. Or murdered elsewhere and dragged there, it's hard to tell until he sees it.  
  
"So how are we today?" he asks forensics, in this case a chirpy Baekhyun who smiles too much, and has the private nickname "Shut up already" which Minseok thinks to himself as he pretends not to glare.  
  
"We're a foot in a shoe and a hand with a ring," Baekhyun replies with a wink, and Minseok can't tell if he's deliberately being inappropriate or actually trying to flirt. He ignores forensics as usual and looks for himself.  
  
It is, indeed, a foot in a shoe and a hand with a ring. _How kind_ , he thinks, _of the killer to make things so easy for us._. As he stands up, he notices, in passing, neon sign flashing the name of a bar or store, he's not sure, and the name doesn't clarify the situation.  
  
_STRANGE FRUIT_  
  
He's about to ask when they get a call about another foot in a shoe just dragged from the river in a poor unsuspecting fisherman's net and it slips his mind.   _I hope it's not two left feet_ , he thinks absently to himself as he gets in his car and drives away. The sign blinks, as if waving _goodbye, we'll see you again_ but he doesn't notice. Good marksmen, after all, are always looking ahead. That's where the target is.  
  
Luckily enough the shoe, and the foot inside, are a match, and they piece together the remains of the victim, a certain Jane Doe. That makes two Johns and three Janes, bringing the grand total of deaths to an uneasy five. Five is too many for the general public's  comfort, but not so many that people start rioting. Minseok wonders sometimes why serial killers get so much press, when you're more likely to die in a car accident because you were drunk or texting, or the other driver was, but he shrugs the thought away.  
  
He still texts while driving anyway. It's too hard to change old habits.  
  
They have a team meeting where nothing gets done and there's a lot of shouting that degenerates into detectives swapping old case stories like a morbid school reunion, lovely how a string of murders can bring people together.  
  
Minseok volunteers to stake out this morning's alley, because it's quiet and he can be alone. He gets tired of the talking, nowadays. The sign swims into focus in his mind for a brief instance, like words relfected on the surface of his subconscious, _strange fruit_ , but Chanyeol, the district chief, is talking too loudly as usual and Minseok loses his train of thought.  
  
He stops at a nearby coffee shop for an Americano on his way. The barista is cute, tall with light hair and an awkward smile as he hands Minseok his coffee. His name tag says that his name is Kris.  
  
"Thanks Kris," Minseok grins, taking the proffered cup, and the barista actually blushes and looks down, it's the cutest thing. For a moment, Minseok feels . . . happy. He realizes he hasn't actually been happy all day.  
  
But the sudden creaming of his cellphone, some Eastern European alt-metal that Baekhyun must have out on his phone, drags him back to reality.  
  
"Sorry," Minseok apologizes, wincing at the sound, and Kris smiles back, as thought to say _it's okay! I get that too, my friends are jerks sometimes just like yours but secretly I'm glad they're around_ before turning to the next customer and Minseok's left wondering why he feels like he just had a whole conversation with someone to whom he literally only said three words, and received none in return.  
  
The alley is just as cold now as it was before dawn, though there are more people wandering around, not yet fully drunk, but they become increasingly more intoxicated as the night wears on, stumbling around and vomiting up the contents of their bad decisions, cup after cup after cup draining their wallets. Minseok watches from his car, drinking his coffee and trying to stay awake by imagining getting more, but only because he wants more coffee and not because of the barista or anything.  
  
_I'll go there tomorrow_ , he thinks, forgetting to pretend, just for a moment. But he really is falling asleep and there's no one around at ass-o'clock in the A.M. — Minseok's pretty sure, actually, that there's not going to be anyone at all, because who would come back to the scene of the crime, what serial killer of five people already would make that kind of amateur mistake, but he dutifully makes sure his belt and gun are strapped on securely before exiting his vehicle.  
  
It's even colder outside but the chilly air wakes him up a little, soon his stamping his feet and blowing on his hands and his stake-out is pretty much a bust but who really cares anyway. This is a dead end.  
  
But as soon as he thinks that, the hairs on his neck all stand up and his fingers clutch reflexively at his gun when he sees the shadowed figure stooping over the spot where the foot was found. He can't quite tell from here, but he's pretty sure the figure is carrying something, something lumpy.  
  
"Hands up!" Minseok shouts, approaching with proper position, barrel of the bun expertly aimed. "On your knees!" He can't help the flash of excitment when the figure doesn't listen, stumbling up to run instead. "Stop or I'll shoot!"  
  
The figure doesn't stop. Minseok pulls the trigger, aiming for the the leg, just enough to take them down.  
  
He watches in fascination, not yet horror, as the figure trips and falls, taking the bullet in the heart instead. It feels like television. He's never shot anyone before, not like this.  
  
He's fumbling for his phone when he gets close enough to see who it is.  
  
It's Kris.  
  
The fascination finally turns to horror, but it's too late, the damage is already done. There's no game over, please start again next time. The barista's jacket slips open, and Minseok can see that Kris is holding an injured cat, probably a stray; its leg is bandaged with a splint. It's still purring, as if in shock, as thought it hasn't realized that the wet stuff on its calico fur is blood. Minseok can see his face reflected in the cat's eyes. _Guilty_ , it seems to be saying.  
  
Everything is too quiet as he stumbles forward, still too far away. He doesn't hear the second gun go off. The small chuckle in the dark. But he feels the bullet as it enters his skull, not enough to kill instantly, just by degrees.  
  
The killer who seemed so fictional in a way, body parts like a morbid puzzle, no heads and no finger prints to identify the victims, is suddenly all too real, as a shadow darts back down the lane.  
  
Minseok realizes that it must have started to drizzle, somewhere between his mistakes. Lying chest down on the cold asphalt, he sees the words reflected in the puddle of water next to his face.  
  
_STRANGE FRUIT_  
  
He still doesn't know what it means, and now he never will.  
  
It's cold, in the alley.  
  
_This is how they make monsters of us_ , Minseok thinks, as his life drips slowly out of the hole in his skull. _They put guns in our hands and push us in the wrong direction. By the time we realize the truth, it's too late._  
  
It's always been too late for Minseok. It was too late when he woke up in the morning, the strange foreboding weighing on his chest, and it was too late even before that.  
  
_I was born to die_ , Minseok thinks, before the lights go out. _I was born to do the wrong thing._  
  
He doesn't realize, as the spark fades from his eyes and his breathing stills with one last rattling exhale, that he's done so many right things too.  
  
Maybe it's just as well.  
  
There's another body, lying in the lane, and this one didn't wake up knowing he would die. He woke up living.  
  
It's too bad the stars thought otherwise.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Former comments [here](http://theblueintheday.livejournal.com/4583.html).


End file.
